The Staying Power library

Not for everyday help.

After a qualifying hospital stay, Medicare covers skilled nursing and therapy for up to 100 days, and usually for far less. It does not cover everyday help with bathing, dressing, eating, and getting around when that is the only care you need.

It varies, by design.

Your price is based on your age when you apply, along with sex, tobacco use, and health. You also have real choices: how much coverage, how you structure it, and how you pay for it, including spreading payments across a longer stretch of years. Your agent will show you options across a range, so you can see what fits.

When two everyday things need someone else's help.

These policies start paying when a licensed health care practitioner certifies you need real help with at least two of six everyday tasks: bathing, dressing, eating, getting to the bathroom, controlling your bladder or bowels, and getting in and out of a bed or chair. The help also has to be expected to last at least 90 days. A severe cognitive impairment, such as from Alzheimer's, certified by a licensed health care practitioner, also qualifies on its own, even if you can still do all six. This is the standard rule for tax-qualified long-term care policies, and each policy's own terms decide the details. Payments begin after a 90-day waiting period, which you only meet once. Those first 90 days are paid back with your fourth month.

A conversation first.

You talk with a licensed insurance agent about the lifestyle you want as you age. Together you assess what that care or help could cost, and look at ways to fund it. If it makes sense to move forward, you can start an application in the same conversation. If it doesn't, you leave knowing more than you came with.

The money doesn't simply disappear.

Policies like this are designed so that if you never draw benefits for care, a death benefit passes to the people you name, less any loans or withdrawals. Your agent will walk you through exactly how that works before you decide.

There are other paths.

Coverage depends on underwriting, and not everyone qualifies for every policy. If the first path doesn't fit, your agent will go through what else is available for your situation. You won't be left without answers.

It can, unless you add protection.

You can add inflation protection that grows your coverage every year, whether or not you're using it yet, so it can better keep pace with the cost of care. It costs more to add, and it's worth asking about on the call.

No.

Staying Power is a licensed insurance agency. We work with Nationwide Life Insurance Company and Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company to offer coverage built around aging in place. We help with funding first, because it's what keeps every other choice in your hands.